The Poetry of D. H. Lawrence - D. H. Lawrence

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Unknown that lies before us, bearing the ark

       Of the covenant onwards where she cannot go.

       Let us rise and leave her now, she will never know.

      After Many Days

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      I wonder if with you, as it is with me,

       If under your slipping words, that easily flow

       About you as a garment, easily,

       Your violent heart beats to and fro!

       Long have I waited, never once confessed,

       Even to myself, how bitter the separation;

       Now, being come again, how make the best

       Reparation?

       If I could cast this clothing off from me,

       If I could lift my naked self to you,

       Or if only you would repulse me, a wound would be

       Good; it would let the ache come through.

       But that you hold me still so kindly cold

       Aloof my flaming heart will not allow;

       Yea, but I loathe you that you should withhold

       Your pleasure now.

      Blue

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      The earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over

       The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide

       Slowly into another day; slowly the rover

       Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide.

       I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting

       Me who am issued amazed from the darkness, stripped

       And quailing here in the sunshine, delivered from haunting

       The night unsounded whereon our days are shipped.

       Feeling myself undawning, the day's light playing upon me,

       I who am substance of shadow, I all compact

       Of the stuff of the night, finding myself all wrongly

       Among the crowds of things in the sunshine jostled and racked.

       I with the night on my lips, I sigh with the silence of death;

       And what do I care though the very stones should cry me unreal, though the clouds

       Shine in conceit of substance upon me, who am less than the rain.

       Do I not know the darkness within them? What are they but shrouds?

       The clouds go down the sky with a wealthy ease

       Casting a shadow of scorn upon me for my share in death; but I

       Hold my own in the midst of them, darkling, defy

       The whole of the day to extinguish the shadow I lift on the breeze.

       Yea, though the very clouds have vantage over me,

       Enjoying their glancing flight, though my love is dead,

       I still am not homeless here, I've a tent by day

       Of darkness where she sleeps on her perfect bed.

       And I know the host, the minute sparkling of darkness

       Which vibrates untouched and virile through the grandeur of night,

       But which, when dawn crows challenge, assaulting the vivid motes

       Of living darkness, bursts fretfully, and is bright:

       Runs like a fretted arc-lamp into light,

       Stirred by conflict to shining, which else

       Were dark and whole with the night.

       Runs to a fret of speed like a racing wheel,

       Which else were aslumber along with the whole

       Of the dark, swinging rhythmic instead of a-reel.

       Is chafed to anger, bursts into rage like thunder;

       Which else were a silent grasp that held the heavens

       Arrested, beating thick with wonder.

       Leaps like a fountain of blue sparks leaping

       In a jet from out of obscurity,

       Which erst was darkness sleeping.

       Runs into streams of bright blue drops,

       Water and stones and stars, and myriads

       Of twin-blue eyes, and crops

       Of floury grain, and all the hosts of day,

       All lovely hosts of ripples caused by fretting

       The Darkness into play.

      Snap-dragon

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      She bade me follow to her garden, where

       The mellow sunlight stood as in a cup

       Between the old grey walls; I did not dare

       To raise my face, I did not dare look up,

       Lest her bright eyes like sparrows should fly in

       My windows of discovery, and shrill "Sin."

       So with a downcast mien and laughing voice

       I followed, followed the swing of her white dress

       That rocked in a lilt along: I watched the poise

       Of her feet as they flew for a space, then paused to

       press

       The grass deep down with the royal burden of her:

       And gladly I'd offered my breast to the tread of her.

       "I like to see," she said, and she crouched her down,

       She sunk into my sight like a settling bird;

       And her bosom couched in the confines of her gown

       Like heavy birds at rest there, softly stirred

       By her measured breaths: "I like to see," said she,

       "The snap-dragon put out his tongue at me."

       She laughed, she reached her hand out to the flower,

       Closing its crimson throat. My own throat in her

       power

       Strangled, my heart swelled up so full

       As if it would burst its wine-skin in my throat,

       Choke me in my own crimson. I watched her pull

       The gorge of the gaping flower, till the blood did

       float

       Over my eyes, and I was blind—

       Her large brown hand stretched over

       The windows of my mind;

       And there in the dark I did discover

       Things I was out to find:

       My Grail, a brown bowl twined

       With swollen veins that met in the wrist,

       Under whose brown the amethyst

      

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